


chase off demons

by dorypop



Series: 200 followers celebration prompts [6]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, set the night after the bllb church scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29782872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorypop/pseuds/dorypop
Summary: Adam calls Ronan after the BLLB church scene (kinda). For the tumblr prompt: "just please be my friend right now, not the guy i just confessed to"
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Series: 200 followers celebration prompts [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2177475
Comments: 7
Kudos: 78





	chase off demons

Ronan wasn’t going to pick up. He’d actually been planning to throw his phone as far as his headphones cord allowed as soon as he managed to make his hands stop shaking for the _second_ it would take to plug the stupid thing.

But he’d involuntarily looked down at the screen when his phone had gone off in his hand, and the screen read _St. Agnes_.

He let it ring.

He just wanted to make sure his phone didn’t die on him, put on his music and forget the past few hours. He maybe needed a beer for that. He didn’t trust his legs to carry him to the bathroom to get one, though, so he stayed put, still looking at the now-blank screen.

It started ringing again.

He picked up.

There was, of course, no nun on the other side. It was three in the fucking morning.

“Parrish?” he said, because all he could hear was a kind of muffled sound he really didn’t want to identify. At least Adam was breathing—unlike the body he’d just buried, behind the barn where Ronan and Matthew would always hide when playing hide and seek with Declan, before Declan stopped wanting to play—

“Ronan,” Adam finally muttered. It was a ragged sound, very unlike Adam Parrish.

Ronan stood up.

“Parrish?”

Adam didn’t have time to answer before Ronan’s battery ran out on him.

Ronan threw his phone against the wall his room shared with Noah’s, and then he also threw the jacket he’d just taken off—still splattered with mud and dirt and maybe dried blood that would perfectly match Ronan’s DNA—for good measure.

Breathing deeply, Ronan tied his shoes. He took another jacket and put it on. He didn’t wake Gansey when he passed by his bed.

His hands were still shaking when he parked in front of St. Agnes.

He found Adam kneeling in the office, still clutching the phone pressed to his right ear. For a moment, Ronan thought he was maybe talking to Blue. But Adam didn’t look up when Ronan came in—he kept staring into space, like when he was scrying.

“Parrish,” Ronan said. Adam blinked. When Ronan came closer, he could hear the disconnected call tone coming from the phone. Adam didn’t fight him when he removed the handset from his curled fingers. “Adam.”

“Yeah.”

“Good. You’re there. What the fuck.”

But Adam didn’t seem to be there. He just nodded when Ronan suggested they go upstairs. The door had been left open, which was something Adam never did.

“You lost your key or something?”

Adam seemed to wake up then.

“Ronan,” he said, as if surprised to see Ronan there, as if Ronan wouldn’t come after a call like that, after _a day_ like that. “You died,” he whispered.

Ronan didn’t need a reminder.

“Yes, I was there, fuck you very much. The fuck happened here?”

“I made you kill yourself,” Adam said, still in a too-brittle voice, “and then I left you alone, and I wanted to call you and I know I really should not have because—”

“You called me.”

“I did?”

“I’m gonna close the door,” Ronan said.

“What for?”

The night was getting weirder by the minute. Ronan opened Adam’s tiny fridge, to see if Blue had left yogurt around here like she did at Monmouth all the time.

“Wouldn’t want you to get robbed.”

Adam didn’t smile at the joke. Ronan was about to try again, about how Adam should find himself a bigger fridge to be able to fit a total count of one butter stick and three eggs and a beer can that Ronan was pretty sure he had left there himself something like a month ago, but something made him pause.

“Did someone rob you, Parrish?” he asked.

“What? No, of course not. What would anyone want to steal from here?”

“Dunno. You’ve been acting weird.”

“I haven’t,” Adam said.

“Why did you call me?”

“I shouldn’t have.”

“No refunds.”

“Sorry, then.” After that, Adam stayed quiet.

“You didn’t _make me_ kill myself. It was a dream. Shit happens,” Ronan said, because he didn’t want Adam to start drifting away again, like he had before.

“That’s—I _can’t_ be what you need me to be. I’m not even who you think I am—This is just—”

“Some of us can’t follow that brilliant brain of yours, Parrish. You’re gonna have to slow down.”

“I _know_ , Ronan.” For maybe the first time since Ronan had arrived, Adam looked at him. “I know how you feel. About me, I mean. And I’m—I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, because I _really_ cannot—Right now, I can’t—I couldn’t—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ronan said, because apparently he had driven here just to be rejected to his face, but _Adam_ was the one blinking suspiciously fast for whatever reason.

Adam didn’t listen.

“I just wanted _someone_ to be here, and all I could think was about you, and how _you_ make me feel better when you’re here, but the very fact that I wanted to ask you to come and _comfort_ me after what happened earlier, after what I just told you—God, shit, I’m such a _terrible_ person, why can’t you _see_ that? You died and still I call you here to—”

“To _what_. Why did you call me? Why did you want me to _comfort_ you,” he sneered, “ _tonight_?” Tonight, after they’d fought, after Ronan had left to bury his own body, after something had shaken Adam so badly that he’d felt the need to uncover all of Ronan’s secrets and poke at them until they bled.

Adam smiled. It was not a happy smile—he looked exhausted and miserable and like he was in pain. Suddenly, Ronan remembered when Adam had also looked like that—back before he’d moved out of the trailer, when he got back to school after missing class for a couple of days, walking stiffly and saying he had migraines when Gansey asked him about it during lunch.

“You should hate me, Ronan Lynch.”

Ronan came to sit down next to Adam.

“I’d need a very good reason for that.”

Adam nodded. “I can’t date you,” he said, with such a severity that Ronan wondered if he truly believed Ronan would just stand up and leave him in the middle of this breakdown he was having because he had just been friendzoned, or something.

“I can get over you not liking me back, Parrish.”

Adam shook his head.

“But I like you,” he muttered. “I just can’t date you.”

Ronan would be having nightmares about this moment for the foreseeable future. That was fine. What was one more thing to add to the pool, right?

“Okay,” he said, even though nothing was _okay_. “Look, man, you don’t gotta tell me shit. But something’s clearly not okay and I don’t really know what you’re talking about but—shit, Adam. What the fuck.” Yes, Ronan was totally panicking now, because Adam Parrish was _crying_.

“My dad came earlier,” Adam whispered, and furiously started wiping at his eyes, as if he was _embarrassed_.

“Fucking _shit_. Adam.” Ronan was also whispering, but he actually felt like yelling, it was just not enough air in the room for that. Adam was supposed to be safe here. That was the _whole point_. Adam needed to be safe and happy and very far away from pieces of shit who looked at him and for some wrecked reason their brains told them it was a good idea to hurt this marvelous boy until he believed the marvel had fled from him.

“You okay?” Ronan rasped, leaning closer so that he could inspect Adam better. “Did he hurt you?”

Adam’s breath caught on a sob, but he shook his head. Ronan of course didn’t believe that for a second—Adam’s face might not have been spurting any fresh bruises, but he had gotten hurt all right.

“Okay. Okay, shit. What do you need.”

“Just—please? Can you be my friend right now, and not the guy I just confessed to?”

Ronan snorted. Yes, now was not the time to talk about _that_. Holy shit.

“Of fucking course, dipshit. Come here. Hug time.” He opened his arms. Adam fell into them. There, the easiest thing in the world—why couldn’t everyone else see that? Adam sniffled and buried his nose deeper into Ronan’s clavicle. Ronan tightened his embrace around his waist, hoping Adam would guess right and take it to mean Ronan was not going to leave.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a haiku by Kobayashi Issa: in my country / even the children / chase off demons
> 
> First published on [tumblr](https://hklnvgl.tumblr.com/)!


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